Southern Belle hired a neighbor (Josh) with a skid-steer and brush hog. The 'hog is powered by hydraulics so it can be raised and lowered and tipped. While it can chew down a tree up to 4" in diameter it is a slow process.
So SB hired me to use the chainsaw on everything over 3" in diameter. I delimb the bigger stuff and toss the "littles" to one side for Josh to deal with and cut the "bigs" into 16" bolts and toss them into a pile.
None of the trees are very big. The largest sweet cherry (P. serotina) I cut was about 7" diameter and the biggest box elder (Acer nigra) was 10" diameter. However, the tops are knit together with grape vines. That makes the delimbing and tossing a real chore.
The preliminary plan was to have Josh clear a path around the perimeter for the fence crew. Then, if there was time to grind down as much brush within the pasture as he could.
It only took Josh 2 hours to complete the perimeter. He used an app called OnX to stay 30' inside the property line. He thinks grinding the brush inside of the pasture will go much faster because all he has to do is "color within the lines" and he will not have to stop to look at his smart phone.
The 30' strip will be left in brush to reduce the visibility of the animals from the paved road that runs parallel to it. Another reason to leave a strip of brush is to break the wind and catch drifting snow, but that does not apply in this case due to the direction of the prevailing winds.
Using cattle to smash brush
One of the back-up plans for controlling the brush in the pasture is to toss hay into the thickest part and letting the feeding cattle trample the brush.
That is why cutting the path for the perimeter fence was the first priority. Once that is done, it empowers SB with the means to finish the job if Josh is not able to.
That plan will probably not be needed because Josh's brush-hog has enough speed and power to shred the entire plot within the time-frame that SB has budget to fund.
Unexpected delight
One thing that delighted me is that there is a seedling apple tree in the brushy strip. based on its size, it was there before some previous owner stopped maintaining the pasture. It is still holding some apples and the leaves looked disease-free. I picked up a windfall and took a bite.
Unlike the apple tree near the goat pens (which had apples so horrible tasting even the goats were loath to eat them), this apple had a good balance of sweet and tart and had excellent flavor intensity and it was still crunchy.
The tree itself is multi-stem and the stems are about 10" in diameter. The canopy is very high in the air and it would be a multi-year chore to prune it to match modern sensibilities. The smart thing would be to prune out the dead limbs and the brush tall enough to compete with the tree and leave it as a semi-feral "fence-row" tree.
I would love to graft a few twigs onto some of my orchard trees to see how they perform with a little bit more TLC.
A new apple for grafting! That it does well without coddling and sprays is interesting. Opportunity knocks.
ReplyDeleteWill be interesting to see how it does among the trees you already spray and coddle.
Feral edible fruit trees are a wonderful find and I am surprised the local deer - rabbits haven't damaged the bark and killed the tree. Hard work - especially moving the cut limbs to a brush pile (consider saving some for small animal habitat).
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as if progress was made in taking care of the pasture. Great job !